MILL CREEK — A man armed with a knife left behind a backpack full of clues — including a ticket with his name on it — at the scene of a grocery store robbery, according to the Snohomish County Sheriff’s Office.

The suspect was arrested weeks later.

A man wearing earmuffs tried to shoplift two bottles of alcohol from a Safeway in the Bothell area Nov. 11, according to a probable cause statement filed in Everett District Court. A store manager confronted him near the door and recovered the bottles.

But the thief ran back to the alcohol aisle, grabbed two more bottles and tried to run out again. The manager grabbed him by the backpack. The man whipped around holding a knife. He fled, but left behind his jacket, his scarf and his pack, according to the report.

In the pack, deputies found a ticket with the man’s name on it, a sheriff’s deputy wrote. Outside the store a police dog sniffed out the man’s abandoned earmuffs.

Mill Creek police stopped the suspect, 26, at a QFC store Dec. 3, about three miles north of the robbery scene. The man confessed to the crime in a recorded interview with deputies, according to the sheriff’s office.